


Where Help May Be Found

by Fyre



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale - cryptid of the Queer community
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 12:49:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19928335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: Everyone knows about the bookshop.No one really knows why, but everyone knows about it.You can go there, they know. It’s safe. You don’t need to be afraid.





	Where Help May Be Found

**Author's Note:**

> Just a wee short thing inspired by [this post](https://aziraphaleisagender.tumblr.com/post/186351657889/thinking-about-aziraphale-being-known-in-the-queer).

Everyone knows about the bookshop.

No one really knows why, but everyone knows about it.

You can go there, they know. It’s safe. You don’t need to be afraid.

No one really talks about it either. Not in more than a whisper of advice. Look for the bookshop, they say and that’s all everyone will ever say. Say you’ve been to the bookshop and you get a smile and a nod and they understand.

Sometimes, a story’ll pop up, but no one knows which ones are true anymore.

The oldest one, the first one, was Ned or Ted or something like that, back in the Industrial revolution, when times were changing. He was an out-of-towner, in looking for work. Got mixed up in the wrong kind of company because of where his tastes ran. Nasty company, who took advantage of a young lad from the country.

They said he ran away and hid in the bookshop, hiding from the so-called gentlemen who claimed he was theirs to do with as they pleased. They never found him, those so-called gentlemen, but every one of them met a sticky end.

As for Ned?

Well, Ned lived a bachelor life, sharing his apartments with another like-minded young man only a few streets from the bookshop. He was happy, they said, and had no trouble at all.

Name after name, story after story, going back decades and even centuries. Maisie, hiding bruises left by her furious father. Tom lost and weeping on the doorstep after his family turned him out. Mary and Lilian with their hands tightly clasping one another. Fanny in the dress she stole from her sister’s wardrobe when they tried to force her back into trousers.

There were even whispers that Oscar Wilde visited the shop. One of his haunts, the stories said. Before, during, after the trial. Robbie too. Only a story, though.

Maybe some of them are true.

Maybe some of them were greeted – as the story goes – with a warm smile, a cup of tea and a biscuit. Who does the greeting, no one will say. Whoever it is, they are safe and they are kind and if you ever needed to find help, you would always find it in the bookshop.

Go to the bookshop, the whispers say. There, you’ll be safe.


End file.
